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February

20 Love Your Pet Day
20 Cherry Pie Day
21 Directory Day
22 George Washington Day (USA)
22 Teddy Bear Day
22 World Thinking Day
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23 Banana Bread Day
24 Calendar Day
24 Obnoxious Day
24 Children's Day
25 Cuddle Day
27 Polar Bear Day

March

1 Pig Day
1 Share A Smile Day
1 St David's Day
1 Peanut Butter Lovers' Day
2 Banana Cream Pie Day
2 Give Up Easily Day
3 I Want You To Be Happy Day
3 Employee Appreciation Day
3 National Anthem Day (USA)
3 Hina Matsuri (Japan)
4 Tavern Day
5 Say Hi To Mom Day
5 Multiple Personality Day
6 Chocolate Cheesecake Day
6 Dentists' Day
7 Cereal Day
8 International Women's Day
8 No Smoking Day
9 Telephone Day
10 Money Day
11 Dream Day
11 Frankenstein's Birthday
12 Plant A Flower Day
12 Alfred Hitchcock Day
12 Department Store Day
13 Uranus Day
14 Pi Day
14 Potato Chip Day
14 Genius Day
14 White Day
15 Ides Of March
15 Buzzard Day
16 Everything You Do Is Right Day

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4 CE Gaius Caesar Agrippa (b. 20 BCE) died.

1431 The trial of Joan of Arc began.

1437 Perth, Scotland: King James I of Scotland was assassinated at the Friars Preachers Monastery by a group of nobles, led by Sir Robert Graham, who sought to place a rival on the throne. He attempted to escape his assailants through a sewer. However, three days previously, he had had the other end of the drain blocked up because of its connection to the tennis court outside, balls habitually getting lost in it. The conspirators failed, as his son ascended the throne.

1440 The Prussian Confederation was formed.

1513 Death of Pope Julius II (b. 1443).

1595 Robert Southwell, English poet ('St Peter's Complaint'; 'Upon the Image of Death'; 'Love's Servile Lot'; b. 1561), was hanged at Tyburn, after having been pursued relentlessly and mercilessly tortured by Walsingham's fave psychopath, Topcliffe, and his agents, for having become a Jesuit priest against the law. 

To the Roman Catholic Church he is the Venerable Robert Southwell, martyr, canonized on October 25, 1970, by Pope Paul VI as one of the 40 representative martyrs of England and Wales.

He was examined 13 times under torture by members of the Council, and was long confined in a dungeon crawling with vermin. However, despite the extremity of the tortures, he refused to give information that would reveal other priests. After nearly three years in prison he was taken to Newgate Prison and placed in the underground dungeon called Limbo before being brought to trial at Westminster on February 20, 1595, when he was sentenced to the usual punishment of hanging and quartering, which was carried out the following day. Contrary to the sentence, he was dead before he was cut down and quartered.

Ben Jonson declared of one of Southwell's pieces, 'The Burning Babe', that to have written it he would readily forfeit many of his own poems. Printed posthumously, his poetry would become some of the most popular of the age. While it is probable that Southwell had read Shakespeare, it is practically certain that Shakespeare had read Southwell and imitated him, using 'The Burning Babe' in Macbeth (Southwell was even a distant relative on his mother's side).

"The night before his execution Southwell's prominent Catholic friends had pressed his case with Elizabeth in a private audience. After his death they met her again to present her with Southwell's book on the duty of poets. What she read is said to have moved her to display 'signs of grief.'"   Source

 

'Upon the Image of Death'

By Robert Southwell

Before my face the picture hangs
That daily should put me in mind
Of those cold names and bitter pangs
That shortly I am like to find ;
But yet, alas, full little I
Do think hereon that I must die.

I often look upon a face
Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin ;
I often view the hollow place
Where eyes and nose had sometimes been ;
I see the bones across that lie,
Yet little think that I must die.

I read the label underneath,
That telleth me whereto I must ;
I see the sentence eke that saith
Remember, man, that thou art dust!
But yet, alas, but seldom I
Do think indeed that I must die.

Continually at my bed's head
A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell
That I ere morning may be dead,
Though now I feel myself full well ;
But yet, alas, for all this, I
Have little mind that I must die.

The gown which I do use to wear,
The knife wherewith I cut my meat,
And eke that old and ancient chair
Which is my only usual seat,—
All these do tell me I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

My ancestors are turned to clay,
And many of my mates are gone ;
My youngers daily drop away,
And can I think to 'scape alone?
No, no, I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

Not Solomon for all his wit,
Nor Samson, though he were so strong,
No king nor person ever yet
Could 'scape but death laid him along ;
Wherefore I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

Though all the East did quake to hear
Of Alexander's dreadful name,
And all the West did likewise fear
To hear of Julius Cæsar's fame,
Yet both by death in dust now lie ;
Who then can 'scape but he must die?

If none can 'scape death's dreadful dart,
If rich and poor his beck obey,
If strong, if wise, if all do smart,
Then I to 'scape shall have no way.
Oh, grant me grace, O God, that I
My life may mend, sith I must die.

The Works of Robert Southwell

1673 French playwright Molière was buried in secret in a Paris cemetery, denied a public funeral by his enemies in the church and court of King Louis XIV, who himself was a fan.

1677 Death of Benedict Spinoza, Dutch philosopher of Jewish parentage, whose theories about God and Nature caused condemnation by Christian scholars.

1795 Freedom of worship was established in France.

1804 The first self-propelling steam engine or steam locomotive made its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales; it was built by Richard Trevithick.

1816 Captain Edmund Gardner, of the whaler Winslow, while standing on the bow of a whaleboat, was bitten by a whale he had harpooned. He lived another 59 years despite his injuries.

1824  Death of Eugène de Beauharnais (b. 1781), son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine de Beauharnais

1828 USA: The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix was published, the first US newspaper in a native language. Using the Cherokee syllabary, it was developed by Sequoyah, who assigned symbols to 86 Cherokee syllables.

Using his new alphabet, Sequoyah taught his daughter to read in less than a week. In 1821, a group of skeptical tribal chiefs mastered the alphabet in seven days, and gave Sequoyah permission to teach the language to the whole tribe. The Phoenix appeared weekly until May 1834.

1842 John J Greenough patented the sewing machine.

1848 England: In London, 29-year-old Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto.

1849 The Punjab was annexed by Britain.

1858 The first electric burglar alarm was installed by Edwin Holmes of Boston, US.

1878 The first telephone book (with just 50 names) was issued, in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

1885 The newly completed Washington Monument was dedicated.

1893 Thomas Edison received two US  patents. The first was for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and another for a "Stop Device" (No. 491,992-3). Also No. 492,150 for "Process of Coating Conductors for Incandescent Lamps." 

1916 World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun began.

1925 The New Yorker published its first issue.

1929 Peacetime compulsory military training was abolished in Australia.

1952 The Churchill government in the UK abolished Identity Cards to "set the people free".

1952 Actress Elizabeth Taylor married hotel tycoon Conrad Hilton, Jr.

1965 Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.

1970 Swissair Flight 330: All nine crew members and 38 passengers were killed due to the explosion of a bomb in the rear of the plane when it crashed near Zurich, Switzerland.

1972 US President Richard Nixon visited the People's Republic of China to normalise Sino-American relations.

The cordial welcome given Nixon by the Chinese Stalinists was a rebuke to North Vietnam and the NLF, China's supposed allies. By opening diplomatic relations with Beijing, the US hoped to isolate the NLF and pressure it into accepting a negotiated deal to end the war in Vietnam, while preserving imperialist interests in the region.

1972 USA: Beginning of the trial of Fr Philip Berrigan and six other activists ('The Harrisburg Seven') in Harrisburg, PA for an alleged plot to kidnap Henry Kissinger. Proceedings later ended in a mistrial.

1973 Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108.

1974 The long-running Japanese comic strip Sazae-san published its final instalment in the Asahi Shimbun.

1974 The last Israeli soldiers left the West Bank of the Suez Canal in carrying out a truce with Egypt.

1975 Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides HR Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison.

1986 Shigechiyo Izumi, the world's oldest man, died at 120 years and 237 days. Shortly after his hundredth birthday, he experienced anamelanism, a condition in which grey or white hair becomes dark again.

Izumi drank Sho-chu (distilled from barley) and took up smoking at the age of 70. He attributed his long life to "God, Buddha, and the Sun".

Longevity Resources 1    Longevity Resources 2    Guinness Book of Records on Longevity

1988 On his own televangelism program being taped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jimmy Swaggart confessed that he was guilty of an unspecified sin and would be temporarily leaving the pulpit.

"Next to disco, the game show, and the Energizer bunny, the most unforgivable American contribution to world culture has been the common televangelist (cockroachus Evangelicus everbrokus). While this slippery creature's normal habitat includes Mercedes Benzes, exclusive vacation spots, and Republican Party fundraisers, he can at times be found in gay bathhouses, massage parlors, and cruising your local red-light district."   Source: The Daily Bleed

"Probably the saddest 'cut' of all is the FACT that the majority of what the Word of Faith/Prophetic Movement charismaniacs teach does not even work in their own sorry lives."   Source

1989 South Africa: Two members of Winnie Mandela's bodyguard ('Mandela United Football Club') were charged with the murder of 14-year-old ANC activist Stompie Moeketsi. Jerry Richardson, the former coach of the team, admitted to killing Stompie, claiming that Winnie herself was present.  A Dr Asvat, potentially a key witness because he had examined Moeketsi, was murdered soon afterwards. (In 1991 Mandela herself was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault in connection with the death of Moeketsi, who had refused to take part in one of her schemes. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.)

"One of Winnie's accusers is the football team's coach, Jerry Richardson, a suspected police informer who habitually referred to Winnie as 'Mummy' and who is serving a life sentence for Stompie's murder. At his trial in 1990 Richardson denied killing Stompie and he also denied that Winnie had been present when Stompie and three other kidnap victims were brought to her house in Soweto in December 1988 and subjected to prolonged beating. Now Richardson admits to the murder and insists that Winnie participated in the beatings. 'I lied to save Winnie Mandela,' he told a newspaper reporter in prison. In a television interview earlier this month he claimed he had killed Stompie 'under instructions from Mrs Mandela'.

"During Winnie's 1991 trial for the kidnapping and assault of Stompie, two of the surviving kidnap victims described in graphic detail how Winnie had led the assaults, punching and slapping them, before other members of the football club joined in."
Source: The Trouble with Winnie

Winnie Mandela: Fallen political heir

1989 Czechoslavkia: Vaclav Havel was jailed for antigovernment demonstrations. Later he was elected president of the Czech Republic.

1995 Steve Fossett landed in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

2000 USA: David Letterman returned to The Late Show over a month after having had an emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery.

2003 The Station nightclub fire, the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in US history, killing 100 people and injuring more than 200. Ninety-six perished on the night of the fire, and 4 died later from their injuries at local hospitals. It was the deadliest fire in the United States since the 1977 Southgate, Kentucky Beverly Hills Supper Club fire that claimed 165 lives. The Station was a nightclub in West Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island.

The fire started when pyrotechnics set off by Great White, the rock band playing that night, lit flammable soundproofing foam behind the stage.

The beginnings of the fire were caught on videotape by cameraman Brian Butler for WPRI-TV of Providence, for a planned piece on nightclub safety being reported by Jeff Derderian, a WPRI news reporter who is also a part-owner of The Station. The report was inspired by the Chicago nightclub stampede that claimed 21 lives four days earlier. Recently, Derderian had filed a report on mattress fires in which he described packaging foam as "solid gasoline".

The worst nightclub fire was November 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts at the Cocoanut Grove, where 492 died after paper decorations caught fire.

Source: Wikipedia  

2003 Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (b. 1947), Irish activist and former Member of Parliament, was detained by immigration officials in Chicago and denied entry into the United States allegedly on 'national security' grounds.

In 1969, at the age of 21, Bernadette Devlin was the youngest woman ever to be elected to the British parliament, where she represented a predominantly nationalist Northern Ireland constituency. Her radical left-wing politics, coupled with her anti-clericalism, proved controversial.

"Irish activist and former Member of Parliament, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was detained by immigration officials in Chicago, February 21, and denied entry into the United States allegedly on 'national security' grounds.

"According to her daughter, Deidre, two INS officers threatened to arrest, jail, and even shoot the legendary civil rights campaigner when she arrived at Chicago's O'Hare airport. McAliskey (56) was then photographed, finger-printed and returned to Ireland against her will on the grounds that the State Department had declared that she 'poses a serious threat to the security of the United States.'"   Source

"Last Friday's arrival in Chicago wasn't the 55-year old grandmother's first visit to the US. Hell, no...she'd been here some 30 times before in as many years. She had come this time on a visit with her daughter and didn't expect trouble. Why on earth should she? Devlin had never before encountered difficulties, but never before was America ruled by Aschroftian justice."   Source

2004 The first European Union political party organization, the European Greens, was established in Rome.

Tomorrow: Festival of Perpendicular Sun, Illumination the Inner Sanctum of Ramses II, Egypt

A world survey recently conducted by the UN posed the following question:

"Could you please give us your opinion about the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

This was a huge failure due to the following reasons:

In Africa, no one knows what "food" is.
In Western Europe, no one knows what "shortage" is.
In Eastern Europe no one knows what "opinion" is.
In South America no one knows what "please" means.
In the US no one knows what "rest of the world" means.